With the growing demands on the existing power grid—coupled with an ever-increasing threat of climate change—improving energy efficiently has become a forefront concern for many new and existing lighting system installations. Traditional lighting systems in residential and commercial locations are notoriously inefficient as they are often left on when they are not needed (e.g. when the building is not occupied, or when natural daylight is available) and thus waste valuable energy while causing unnecessary greenhouse emissions.
In response to these concerns progressive government states have begun mandating high efficiently lighting systems that are compliant with low energy standards. For example, the state of California has recently updated Title 24 of the California Code of Regulations to now require that all new lighting systems have an ambient light sensor and an occupant sensor. Further the rules may also require that lights to be dimmable, or in fixtures with multiple lights, to be able to only turn on each alternate light.
Currently available technology that complies with regulations such as Title 24 comprise of occupancy and ambient light sensors that are coupled to switches in lighting systems. However such sensors are often connected by wire, which means that they are fixed and thus inflexible. Even in rare instances when lighting systems are wireless they have very limited intelligence and networking capabilities built into the system. Such systems offer an insufficient the amount of control resulting in an unsatisfactory user experience and suboptimal energy saving.
Another limitation of many current intelligent building control systems is that their control logic is stored and executed on a central computer. Such a configuration is problematic because it increases the cost and complexity of lighting systems when scaling the number of connecting devices and nodes to the central computer.
Therefore, due to the weakness of current lighting solutions, there is a current and impending need for lighting systems that are low energy, offer a high degree of control, and are scalable.